General meeting 29/09/10

Islington NUT recognises that the
cuts planned by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government are

the most severe since the
1930s

intended to cut public service
provision to the irreducible minimum

intended to be permanent

belives
that these cuts

will increase not decrease the
Government's deficit (as jobs are lost, purchasing power and tax receipts
fall and the loss of public sector contracts has a knock on effect on the
private sector)*

will contribute significantly
to the threat of a double dip recession

may lead to the downgarding of
UK
debt and consequent rise in interest rates that the government says
it is trying to avoid+

are setting this Government up
for a significant political crisis

believes
further that

although there is at
present widespread anxiety about this policy there is also a
widespread fatalism about it that needs to be challenged

the TUCs policy of
investment led growth and increased taxation on the wealthy is the basis
of a credible political alternative

there is a significant
distinction between local authorites being forced to make cuts they
disagree with (and therefore doing the minimum) and local authorities who
see these cuts as a starting point for going further

this will be a long campaign
against a very determined enemy that can't be fought by the public sector
unions alone

therefore
resolves to organise and campaign in Islington for

the defence of our members
affected directly by cuts to their jobs

a united front of public
sector unions directly affected so we co-operate to get the truth out
about what is happening with a regular joint bulletin to our members and
joint press releases, work together to co-ordinate such actions as our
members will support

a united front of all forces
opposed to the Government's cuts strategy including the leadership of the
Council, who we urge to resist cuts as much
as they can and help mobilise opposition to the Government that is forcing
them on them

the focus of anti-cuts
campaigning to be relentlessly focussed on the national government.

*This is what has already happened in Ireland
and Greece.
+This is what happened to Spanish debt when the government there made a similar
level of cuts this summer

Lobby of Tory Party Conference 3rd Oct

ITA condemns the Coalition government
agenda of cuts and privatisation.

It welcomes the efforts of local activists
in the Trades Council, Defend Whittington Hospital Campaign and the Right To
Work campaign to come in a new campaign group – Islington Hands Off our Public
Services (IHOOPS).

We agree to donate £500 to support the
activities of IHOOPS, including subsidising coach tickets to the Lobby of the
Tory party Conference on 3rd Oct

ITA notes:

1) The all out attack launched on working people and the vital services they rely on by the Con-Dem coalition government.

2) That the attacks on British workers are part of a global attempt to make workers pay for the economic crisis.

3) The wave of mass protests and general strikes across Europe.

4) TUC leader Brendan Barber's call for united campaigning against cuts and that "Where members,faced with attacks on jobs,pay or pensions,take a democratic decision for industrial action they will have support of their unions. The TUC stands ready to co-ordinate that"

5) The call from TUC conference for a national demonstration against the cuts in March 2011.

Believes that:

1) This crisis was caused by bankers and politicians,not workers.It's the bankers and the rich who should pay the price.

2) There should be no cuts made on working class people's jobs,conditions and services. We should not pay for the bankers' cris.

3) The government should be creating jobs and investing in a sustainable future

4) The response of the trade union movement in countries such as Greece and France should act as a model for resistance here.

5) We need to build the fight against the cuts at local and national level both through a mass political campaign and industrial action.

6) The TUC protest against the cuts needs to be built on the biggest possible scale.

7) It will strike action on the scale we have seen in Greece and France to stop Cameron.

Resolves to:

1) To work with other trade unions and campaigning organisations to stop the cuts in one local area.

2) To call on the TUC to name the date for the national demonstration in March and to go all out to build the biggest possible turnout for it.

3) To call on the TUC to coordinate a 24-hour general strike against the cuts and attackss on wages and pensions.

4) To call on our union leaderships at branch, regional and national level to seek to coordinate campaigns and strikes with other ynions.

Support
Martin Smith – protesting against fascism is not a crime

This union branch notes:

1. Martin Smith, an officer of Unite
Against Fascism and the national coordinator of Love Music Hate Racism,
has been convicted of assault on a police officer following the demo against
British National Party leader Nick Griffin’s appearance on the BBC’s Question
Time. He has been sentenced to a 12-month community order, with 80 hours'
unpaid work and a £450 fine.

2. Martin was convicted by magistrates on
the word of a single police officer, despite the lack of evidence against
him.

3. Martin maintains his innocence and
intends to appeal against the conviction.

4. Thousands of people joined the UAF demo
on 22 October last year against nazi Nick Griffin’s invitation onto the
flagship Question Time programme. The demo was backed by trade unions Unite,
PCS, CWU, Bectu, Aslef, TSSA, the Musicians Union and the South East Regional
TUC.

This union branch agrees:

1. This verdict against a leading
antifascist activist is an attempt to criminalise protests against racism and
fascism, and could have implications for other antifascist campaigners in
future.

2. It is important to stand up for our
right to protest.

This union branch resolves:

1. To send a message of support to Martin
and back his appeal.

2. To make a donation of £500 towards
Martin’s legal costs

Special Educational
Needs

Islington
NUT notes:

1.The Warnock Report (1978)
which projected an overall figure of 20% as the ballpark figure for the
proportion of children with special educational needs that could be expected at
an average school.

2.The recent OFSTED
Report that criticises teachers across the country for following these
guidelines and identifying this overall number of children as having special
educational needs.

Islington
NUT believes:

1.That the media
debate that has followed this report has been marked by a disturbing level of
ignorance – either presuming a wildly exaggerated level of funding for SEN
(“gravy train” Daily Mail) and / or assuming that any child identified as
having any difficulty is being classified as seriously brain damaged and / or
that some children are inherently uneducable: but all with the implicit or
explicit subtext that putting a child forward for further support is an
admission of failure on the part of the teacher who does it.

2.That identifying
special educational needs is about setting up a process to help children
overcome them through additional support (very rarely adequately funded) not
about labelling them as inherently marked for failure.

3.The admission by
OFSTED that the proportion of children with SEN in any given school tends to
correspond with its level of deprivation (measured by all the standard indices)
is an admission that the SEN code of conduct has been one way that teachers
working in deprived areas, like Islington, have tried to get additional support
for children who need it.

4.That OFSTEDs
argument that “good teaching” should be enough to deal with most mild special
educational needs implies that the kind of close individual assessment for
children not making progress, analysis of their strengths and weaknesses and
sensitively tailored adaptations to curriculum and support (all of which are
put in place by the SEN process) has no role to play in developing “good
teaching”: and is likely to be a means whereby “one size fits all” factory farm
styles of teaching and discipline are policed.

5.That the
consequence of a campaign by OFSTED to crack down on schools SEN practice will
be to deprive children, particularly those in areas like ours, of the support
they need and provide teachers struggling to provide it with another source of
stress we could do without.

Islington
NUT resolves

1.To seek agreement
with NAHT, ce@islington and LBI on the content of this resolution and seek
explicit guidance to schools to defend good SEN practice.

2.To circulate this
resolution to school SENCOs.

3.

Islamophobia

Islington
NUT believes

That
we are witnessing a frightening rise in Islamophobia and other forms of
racism across Europe and in the US: Black, Asian and immigrant
communities are facing hostility, racist attacks and increased
discrimination.

Muslim
women face bans on full face veils, Mosques and Islamic cultural centres
have been attacked, in Switzerland the erecting of minarets has been
banned, in France and Italy, Roma people have been expelled.

In
Britain Phillip Hollobone MP is proposing a Private Members Bill calling
for a ban on the Burqa.

We
have seen countless mobilisations by the racist and Islamophobic English
Defence League (EDL), which has taken to the streets targeting Mosques and
Muslim communities.

While
condemning EDL violence, sections of the tabloid media and some
politicians give oxygen to their obnoxious views by whipping up prejudice
and anti-Muslim hysteria.

2.That our most fundamental human rights
include the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and cultural
expression.

3.That It took hundreds of years of
struggles, including international and civil wars to establish these rights and
freedoms.

4.That they form the basis of a liberal,
open, diverse society, in which the rights of all to choose their religious,
cultural or personal observances are defended for all groups in society.

notes
further

1.The duty of schools
to promote community cohesion.

2.That Islamophobia
is one of the main obstacles to community cohesion.

Welcomes

The
conference on challenging Islamophobia in schools called by South
Gloucestershire NUT on Oct 2nd andthe One Society Many Cultures conference
on Dec 11th

Resolves

To
circulate material about and from both conferences through the association

To
approach Islington EMAS about doing the same.

To
send up to 5 delegates to each.

Emergency motion on SATS

In
2010 26% of schools boycotted SATs. The NUT and the NAHT successfully ensured
that a quarter of children did not have to sit the SATs. At least 19 Local
Authorities were unable to produce meaningful league tables due to the
boycott.Thousands of Headteachers and
Teachers would have joined the boycott if the action had started sooner in the
school year.

ITA
believes that the NUT should build on this boycott and make sure that for
2010/2011 SATs do not go ahead. We urge the NUT Executive to act swiftly to
come up with a plan of action for this year’s boycott to make it even stronger
and better than last year’s and to release teachers and pupils from a Year 6 of
endless test revision at the earliest possible time, preferably during the
autumn term.

We
call on the NUT Executive to draw up and implement this plan of action even if
the NAHT decides not to go ahead with a boycott next summer.